Real shaving using double edged safety razors and brushed-on lather

Lord L 5, a pleasant shave from Egypt

Today I received in the post a Lord L5 safety razor which I bought, brand new, for £3.50 on eBay. This is about as simple as a metal razor can get. It is a three piece design like a Gillette Tech, screwing in the handle clamps the two sides of the head together, sandwiching the blade. All three parts are very well and precisely made, I would guess that it is made from chromium plated steel.

So I put an Iridium blade in it and lathered up using Body Shop shaving cream and my Frank Shaving brush. It certainly didn’t shave like a Tech, it was far more effective. In fact it was not far short of a Feather Portable. And very smooth, which is a reflection of the precision of its construction. Overall a quite impressive performance.

Now a lot of people reading this will not know who Lord are. They are one of the six major razor manufacturers in the world, based in Alexandria, Egypt and employing over 2,000 people. Founded in 1930 they are ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certified. They export to 75 countries and their products are found throughout much of the developing world. A lot of their technology came from their long standing historic joint venture with Wilkinson Sword. Often their produce is sold with different brand names on it. Some of these are Shark, Big Ben, Asco, Crown, Silver Star, Racer and Rainbow.

Lord are very well known in the traditional shaving community for their excellent blades. However they also make 12 different models of safety razor, some in plastic and some in metal. My L5 is their entry level metal razor. Another metal model is the L6 premium model. This has a scalloped bar, much like a some Merkur and Edwin Jagger razors, this will be interesting to shave with when it arrives. It gets rave reviews in the traditional shaving community.

And also they make their “Click” range of plastic double edged safety razors with a novel side opening mechanism.

So for razor collectors out there these are well worth trying, they are very good quality razors. And if you see any of these brands on your travels then give them a go. For beginners on a low budget one of these razors, picked up from eBay is ideal. They must give just about the best quality to price ratio of any brand new razors.